I understand that Archie comics cannot make new series due to the post Covid-19 situation right now and that the only new content they are working on are short stories made by Archie comics which are published mostly in digests and one shot comics by in house Archie artists and writers.

But seeing that the horror stories in Archie comics are popular which are written by some people outside Archie comics according to this article https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2023/10/30/how-archie-horror-is-redefining-scary-in-comics/ despite that they are still one-shots and are  still drawn by in house Archie comics artists eventhough there are 3-issue miniseries drawn by freenlance writers and artists who worked for dark horse, DC and marvel .

It leads me to wonder if Archie comics should rebrand itself as an horror comic book company , think about it , horror stories in Archie comics are what gave them profit, but Archie is meant for humor even though they put the characters in horror stories some for black humor , so if horror stories is what gives the company profit then maybe they should focus on horror stories instead, and to do that they will sell the brand and the Archie characters to some publishing company perhaps IDW or Boom or maybe Warner bros , while rebranding the company aimed for horror companies with a name like "Madhouse" named after the surreal and later horror (used in the 1970s) Archie anthology series that began in the 1950s called Archie's Madhouse.

That way the company can hire freelance indie artists instead of in house Archie comic artists and even horror writers to make miniseries and ongoing series revolving around the horror genre without the Archie characters and will be used in sub-genre's like comedy,family , young adults,sci-fi and more. That way, the company will gain more profits .

So should Archie comics rebrand itself as an horror comic book company?

The worst thing any comic book publisher can do is to put all their eggs in one basket (meaning... all their comics in one genre). That's really what's been the downfall of Archie Comics... they failed to diversify their product line enough down through the decades. You can't expect to survive in the long run in publishing if you ONLY do humor, or ONLY do horror. Even Marvel and DC, as successful as they've been at superheroes, can't do ONLY superheroes. Overspecialization is a dead end.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on September 11, 2024, 11:52:33 AMThe worst thing any comic book publisher can do is to put all their eggs in one basket (meaning... all their comics in one genre). That's really what's been the downfall of Archie Comics... they failed to diversify their product line enough down through the decades. You can't expect to survive in the long run in publishing if you ONLY do humor, or ONLY do horror. Even Marvel and DC, as successful as they've been at superheroes, can't do ONLY superheroes. Overspecialization is a dead end.

Yeah, you have a good point on why Archie comics have to diversify their product line to survive, especially that this is one of the reasons why the forum and even the Archie comic Subreddits has fewer views, fewer people and fewer replies.